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The Links to the Past on this CD are meant to provide additional information about the period covered in this chapter. These links are not intended to match the Links to the Past feature in your text.

Advertising the New Consumer Products of the Fifties

The John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History at Duke University maintains an online archive of 7,000 advertising images, divided into categories.

1. Select the category “Television,” and browse the advertisements from 1948 and earlier. Browse those from the mid-1950s. What changes do you see in television set design? Why do you think the earliest sets were shaped as they were, and why might manufacturers have rapidly altered the look?

2. Select the category “Beauty and Hygiene” and browse the advertisements from the 1950s for “hair preparations.” These ads differ significantly from those of earlier decades in their reliance on images of Hollywood stars. How and why did these stars become icons of consumption? What implications does this appeal have for standards of physical attractiveness?

3. How do you think the advertising industry may have affected American life in the 1950s?

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